The ethical ramifications on this are fascinating :

I'll stick to whisky to dull my senses from time to time, not as much as MP67 of course, but still I do my share. lol

Seems like it would be hard to target the specific memories to be eliminated. It's often helpful to reintroduce the memory when the person is in a deep relaxed state so that the amygdala is not activated so strongly. The problem with people suffering from PTSD is that their states of arousal are highly activated most of the time, and their adrenal glands are over-reactive. Those conditions need to be addressed first before working on reducing the physiology reactions to the memories.

As the still below demonstrates.

Looks like Mikey has unleashed a "shitstorm"; GaG, I mentioned you in Mike's OP in reply to Gator Jimmy's thread---------you might wanna take a look.

My, the boards are fucking busy today .

-- Modified on 12/2/2010 8:55:01 AM

The approach here is to use a drug to disrupt the creation of calcium-permeable AMPARS, the protein they say are responsible for receptor communication that creates fearful memories.

This study was tested in mice, and to enduce the fear they used electrical shocks on the mice. The electrical shocks could have altered the normal creation of these proteins. In other words, it can skew the data, screwing up drug development.

Another problem is that there's a difference between memory creation and memory recall. Memory is layered in the human brain much like an electrical network. Take out a section of the network, you may take out everything immediately tied to that network.

Such a thing could leave people extremely vulnerable to the world around them.

I thought the OP was a bad idea in the first place, but I allowed it. Since I allowed the OP, I feel obligated to allow all the responses to it, without censorship, regardless of how the chips may fall.

If the thread gets totally out of hand, I may be forced to pull it, but you know my definition of "totally out of hand" is much different from what other people might think.

Mikey's posts elicit a lot of emotions, both positive and negative, I like that type of honest discourse, unless and until it degenerates into a free for all of "fuck you. NO, fuck you!!!" lmao

Shit, what I miss when I take my 3 mile walk.

No pm available, so I'll state this here: ( & GaG, possibly you can identify with this ) I thought SOME of the reaction was unfair,because: "there for the Grace of God go I".

In my early 20's, thru the age of 32,drove drunk
HUNDREDS of times. When I hit 32,busted for DUI;
luckiest thing that ever happened in my life, because I NEVER did that again. Taught me an invaluable lesson. Thank God ( & I say this as an Atheist ) I never hurt myself, but, more , importantly, others.

THAT's why I thought reaction to MP's post was somewhat unjustified. We all have our past personal demons to contend with.

I'll say this for Mikey---warts & all, I like the guy & will take him over the trolls that have inhabited this board anyday.

And , if anyone doesn't like that, they can go fuck themselves.------

In reading about the mice, my mind went to those who have had electro-shock treatment for depression, and the severe loss of memory they experience, some of it just short term but some of it long term. And, they are doing the treatment to change the person's brain-chemistry.

Jokes aside, scary stuff. Sounds like something straight out of a science fiction novel - one that doesn't end well. The ethical dilemmas of a drug like this would be tremendous. And how many different ways could a drug like this be abused?

you have to expect that kind of shit in return.

I didn't pull the thread, but I can't blame admin for pulling it. It had the potential to get downright ugly.

-- Modified on 12/2/2010 7:35:52 PM

But I will say that admitting to a problem is step 1. You gotta take step 2. Know what I'm sayin?